Sermon Mark 2:23-3:6 “Caring for People”
New Covenant Church
June 3, 2018
Listen to this sermon.
I’d like to begin this morning with an Interim Update. Last year you elected a Pastor Search Committee and told them to find a new pastor for this church. This committee has worked diligently.
They have produced a Mission Study which you can look at in the back of the sanctuary. Now they are working on a Ministry Information Form. This is essentially a job announcement. It has information about what you are looking for in a new pastor and how to apply for the position. Once this MIF is completed and approved by your session and the presbytery it will be entered into Church Leadership Connection, an online database for pastors and churches in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). Once this is entered your Pastor Search Committee will start receiving requests from pastors and seminary students from all over the country. Please keep the Pastor Search Committee in your prayers.
Today we turn to Jesus’ teaching on the Sabbath. Jesus is concerned not so much with what we are not to do on the Sabbath. Jesus is more concerned about what we should do on the Sabbath. But before we learn about what we should do on the Sabbath, let’s pray.
“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)
Mark 2:23 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
25 He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”
The Pharisees, in this story, are looking for anything they can find to trap Jesus. So when they see his disciples picking and eating grain on the Sabbath they thought they had something on Jesus. But in reality, Jesus and his disciples had not violated the Sabbath at all. You are allowed to walk through a grain field on the Sabbath. That’s not work. Also, you can pick some grain off the stalk. That’s not work either. The Pharisees think that rubbing the grain in your hand to separate the wheat from the chaff is work because harvesting is prohibited on the Sabbath day. But harvesting grain requires that you cut the stalk, load it in a cart, thresh it in a barn, and mill it into flower. Jesus and his disciple did none of that.
The Pharisees had made a simple mistake. They thought that men and women were made for the Sabbath. In other words, God made us for the purpose of not doing things on the Sabbath. This is false. The reverse is true. The Sabbath was made for men and women. God’s purpose in creating the Sabbath was to bless us with a day of rest. And that means if people are hungry on the Sabbath we have a positive obligation to bless them by sharing our food.
When I lived in Washington DC I was part of a group in my church that went monthly to another church to feed the homeless. We would drive a few miles to an urban church with an extensive homeless ministry. Mostly men and some women would line up at the kitchen door each Sunday afternoon. We would give them a hot lunch and then clean up afterward. The most rewarding part of this mission was that I had a chance to talk to and pray with several of the homeless men.
Several years later I was serving my first church in North East Los Angeles. There were many homeless men and women living on the street in our neighborhood. We started a new worship service on Sunday evening with a meal right after worship. Many of the homeless began to come for a meal. And I asked them to join us in worship. Within a few months we had around 60 very poor people in worship every Sunday night and 20 more would show up for dinner. I organized them into a congregation. Volunteers were needed to cook the food and clean up afterward. I organized a choir around some of the young women and gave them choir robes to cover their tattered clothing. I did a funeral for a homeless man and the place was packed. It was a wonderful experience and I am very pleased that this worship service is still going on in that church.
When I served the church in Ocean City I realized that many of the apartments around the church were filled with extremely poor families in the winter. Those apartments were only affordable in the offseason so these families had to leave in the Spring. But while they were there Grace and I would give them food and invite them to a lunch the church had every Sunday. Many of them came. And some came to church. That year we had a wonderful Christmas pageant filled with kids from the community. This too was an extremely rewarding ministry to lead.
You have some opportunities here at New Covenant in your “Our Daily Bread” program. On the first Friday of each month, a group from this church goes there to prepare and serve a free lunch to anyone who comes. I urge you to get out of the kitchen and talk with the people. Hear their stories. Share your stories. Tell them about the church. Do these things and God will bless your efforts.
So feeding the hungry is something we should do during our time of rest. There is something else we should do. Let’s go back to Mark and listen to Jesus.
Mark 3:1 Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. 2 Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”
4 Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.
5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.
Again, Jesus has done nothing wrong on the Sabbath. He went to the synagogue. There is nothing wrong with that. We should be in church on Sunday. And Jesus prayed for healing. There is nothing wrong with prayer on the Sabbath either. God answered the prayer on the Sabbath and healed this man. So prayers for healing on the Sabbath are certainly ok.
When I went to seminary I thought that there was really no need to pray for healing. After all God had given us doctors and medicines. This was all we needed. I saw no need for prayers for supernatural healing.
But while in seminary I served as a hospital chaplain. One day I heard a request for a chaplain on my floor. I went to the room and talked with the nurse. She said that the patient has just returned from surgery. She had hooked up a machine to automatically dispense morphine to deal with his pain. But the machine wasn’t working. And the patient was is a lot of pain. It would take around 10 minutes for her to get another machine working. So she asked me if there was anything I could do.
I sat down next to the patient and began to pray. I asked God to ease his pain. As I prayed I felt him relax. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the nurse setting up the new machine. I kept praying for around 10 minutes. Then the patient fell asleep as the morphine from the new machine did its job. The next day I returned to the room to talk with the patient. He thanked me for what I did. He said that his pain eased while I was praying. So I prayed again, this time for his complete healing.
As a pastor, I always pray for healing. Sometimes something truly extraordinary happens. On three different occasions, I have been summoned to emergency rooms to pray with dying patients. Doctors have given up. Life support was removed. Families were prepared for an imminent death. And I prayed for healing. Three times now, people I prayed for who were dying walked out of the hospital and went home to live several more years.
Do prayers for healing work? Ye,s they do. Of course, everyone has an appointment with death. We can’t put it off forever. But sometimes God will hear our prayers and do something extraordinary by healing someone.
This is why we pray for healing every Sunday at this church. I hear your requests and pray. And I continue to pray throughout the week. I urge you to pray for healing too. Sometimes God is just waiting for your prayer so that he may be glorified in a healing.
So Jesus wants us to feed the hungry and pray for healing on the Sabbath. There is nothing controversial about these. These are good things to do because they bless people. But the Pharisees were angry at Jesus. After they saw the hungry disciples eating and a withered hand restored they did this.
Mark 3:6 Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.
Certainly, they didn’t plot to kill Jesus just because he plucked grain and healed a withered hand on the Sabbath. They were angry about something else, something Jesus said. Let’s listen to Jesus.
Mark 2:27 Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
God is the Lord of the Sabbath. God created the world in six day and rested on the sabbath. Anyone who claimed to be the “Lord of the Sabbath” would be in violation of the first commandment. They would be claiming to be another god superior to the creator. This is blasphemy. When the pharisees heard Jesus claim that he was the “Lord of the Sabbath” they began plotting to have him put to death.
But Jesus wasn’t claiming to be another god at all. He was claiming something far more than that. Jesus was claiming to be one with the true God who created the world. He was claiming to be the “Son of God.” The pharisees couldn’t see the truth of this claim. But we can because we are filled with the Holy Spirit and can see the Kingdom of God.
So our Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath and wants us to feed the hungry and pray for the sick. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, we gather here on this Sabbath day to listen to your word and respond. We have heard your stories of feeding the hungry and healing the sick. Use us to feed the hungry and pray for the sick in our community. We pray this to you our Lord of the Sabbath. Amen.
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